Rising to bread-making challenge at Calne

Pupils at St Margaret’s Preparatory School, Calne, are being taught the process of ‘field to plate’ by Devizes chef Peter Vaughan.

The four weeks of lessons are part of a project organised by the Academy of Culinary Arts which encourages various chefs to ‘adopt a school’. On week two of the project the pupils made their own Irish soda bread and during the final week they will make loaves and rolls.

Mr Vaughan, who runs The Bistro restaurant and Vaughan’s Kitchen Cookery School, said: "I am not pushing them to prefer wholemeal bread to white, or focusing too much on the health benefits, I want them to have an open mind.

“At the beginning of the course a lot of them prefer the look of white bread but by the end when they make their own bread and taste and smell how it looks they love other options too.

“The children take their bread home so the whole family can become involved.

“The lessons start with how the grain is grown in the field and then goes through the whole process of how it is turned into flour to be used in bread. They learn maths, science, time management and team work without even realising it.”